William Francis Bartlett: Biography of a Union General in the Civil War
Following Maj. Gen. William Francis Bartlett’s death in December 1876 newspapers in both North and South honored the 36-year-old’s memory with adulation and praise. Poets, including Herman Melville, penned stanzas to memorialize this great American general. However, if one were to ask a Civil War historian or buff today to identify Bartlett and his accomplishments few would be able to do so. For more than a century Bartlett’s legacy essentially disappeared. Luckily, authors Richard A. Sauers and Martin H. Sable have rescued this general’s memory through the publication of their eloquently written and superbly researched biography William Francis Bartlett: Biography of a Union General in the Civil War. The book’s 14 chapters ably discuss Bartlett’s entire life with emphasis on his Civil War career. Bartlett, who started out his service as a captain in the 20th Massachusetts, followed by colonelcies in the 49th and 57th Massachusetts, and then command of a brigade in the Ninth Corps, earned a reputation as a hard-nosed fighter unwilling to quit in the face of adversity. Wounded three times during the conflict — including the loss of a leg suffered at Yorktown in the spring of 1862 — Bartlett refused to be bedridden as his patriotism urged him back to the field time and again. The courageous Bartlett fought his last battle in July 1864 at the Crater where he was captured. Although he would never see action again, Bartlett now fought in a different sort of war, this time against ill-health in the prisons of Danville and Richmond. The authors do an excellent job of placing Bartlett in the larger context of the war, but do not make the mistake of losing sight of their subject in discussions of strategy and tactics — a flaw all too common in biographies of this nature. Although they do a splendid job of detailing Bartlett’s Civil War service the book’s value transcends Bartlett’s career as an officer. Throughout the biography there are gems of information which should prove useful to historians interested in a variety of topics in Civil War history beyond Bartlett’s compelling saga. For example, the authors provide good accounts about interactions with slaves in Louisiana in early 1863. Additionally, they present splendid material through Bartlett’s letters about the experiences of a Union officer as a prisoner of war. In the book’s final chapters Sauers and Sable discuss Bartlett’s postwar life — including his marriage to Mary Pomeroy in 1865, management of a paper-mill, and his ill-fated foray into the iron industry. Here, too, the book’s significance goes beyond a mere recounting of Bartlett’s life and illustrates precisely how Bartlett tried to be a major force in postwar politics, including his attempt to prevent Ulysses S. Grant from serving a second term as president. To historians of Civil War memory Bartlett’s name should be important. He was among the first to make calls for postwar reconciliation —in the early 1870s— when to do so was not yet popular. Despite this, not even the best studies of Civil War memory, including David Blight’s superb work Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory, mention Bartlett’s efforts and public addresses he made in both North and South calling for a binding of the nation’s wounds. Despite his short life General Bartlett achieved much and embodied the finest qualities of the American citizen soldier. Sauers and Sable are to be commended for this volume which rescues a true American hero from obscurity and places him in his rightful place of honor and prestige. Reviewer: Jonathan A. Noyalas is a history professor at Lord Fairfax Community College in Middletown, Va., and the author or editor of four books on Civil War era history. |
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